01 February 2007

Worked a late shift yesterday, so I used the morning to do a renovation project on the old house. Popped off a closet door that didn't quite fit and planed the bottom of it until it would clear the frame. Grated off the top of two of my fingers in the process. It hurts. Don't try it at home. Was bleeding so profusely that I had to use a styptic pencil to stop it long enough to get band-aids on. Fun! Anyway, I finished the job by tearing off the old rim lock on the door and replacing it was a new reproduction brass one that replicates the Arts & Crafts era of the house (which was built in 1914).

So anyway, having finished that, I went to catch the early screening of "Pan's Labyrinth." I can best describe the movie thusly:

(sound of brain exploding)

It's part fantasy, part war story. It was very good, if difficult to watch. Not only are there a handful of grizzly scenes -- a man beat about the face to death, a leg sawn off, and a couple of things that are much worse -- but there's an overriding feeling of gloom and hopelessness that surrounds the whole narrative. It's by Guillermo del Toro, who also did "Hellboy" and the lesser film "Mimic." But his best movie, aside from this one, is called "The Devil's Backbone." It's also in Spanish, and one of the best ghost stories in modern cinema. Netflix that bad boy.

So go see "Pan's Labyrinth" while it's still here, but don't even dream about taking the kids.

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What the hell...?

So for a lot of years, my day job was as a writer with the Ledger-Enquirer, a fine newspaper based in Columbus, Ga. Spent much of that as a music writer, and the rest of it writing about pop culture and culture at large. I won some awards and stuff. Whatever.